Classic Movies Live!

In 1993, an enormous corporation gave a small group of creatives the opportunity to create their dream project based on one of the biggest media franchises of all time. Despite behind-the-scenes troubles, including a production schedule that ended up being significantly different than originally planned, the film finally released against all odds... only to be met with relative apathy from the moviegoing public. But over the years, that film would be reappraised, with new fans discovering it on home media and kicking themselves that they weren't there in the first week. Hundreds of weeks later, our hosts sat down to talk about that movie in yet another exploration of a certified classic. No, it's not Super Mario Bros.; this week, Pierre and Jeff break down Batman: Mask of the Phantasm! Written and produced between seasons 1 and 2 of Batman: The Animated Series, Mask of the Phantasm finds Batman facing his past when a mysterious figure called the Phantasm begins killing mafia bosses in Gotham City. At the same time, Bruce Wayne's old flame Andrea Beaumont comes back to town to... visit? Settle some business with her father's successor as CEO of Beaumont Industries? It's a little unclear, but it's up to the World's Greatest Detective to make it clear, and discover what Andi's been up to since they last met... and learn how this all ties back to the Phantasm. Jeff takes a few points from this review of Mask of the Phantasm by Darren Mooney on Letterboxd. Check it out, it's a good read!

This week on Classic Movies Live! our hosts take a quick detour to talk about a verified, certified classic! This is the companion piece to our previous episode on No Country for Old Men, covering the other big player at the 80th Academy Awards: There Will Be Blood! Considered by many to be director Paul Thomas Anderson's magnum opus, There Will Be Blood stars Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview, an oil-man attempting to strike rich in the town of Little Boston. As Plainview buys up the land in town, promising untold riches and prosperity to the people of Little Boston, he runs up against Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), a local preacher and "son of these hills" who is, to put it lightly, not fond of the way Plainview conducts business. There Will Be Blood would go on to be nominated for 8 Academy Awards, winning Best Actor in a Leading Role for Daniel Day-Lewis and Best Cinematography for Robert Elswit. Perhaps just as impressively, it was the second movie that our co-host Jeff would see in the Dundee Theatre in Omaha, Nebraska, becoming the centrepiece of a formative experience to his development as a cinephile. You know the drill: both our hosts have seen this movie, and they've got thoughts! Are they good thoughts? Bad thoughts? Oil thoughts? Tune in as Pierre and Jeff dissect another classic movie... live!

This week on Classic Movies Live!, Ryan Gosling returns! Project Hail Mary is a new sci-fi film from Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, directors of 21 Jump Street, 22 Jump Street, and The Lego Movie, but most recently best-known as the Oscar-winning producers of Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse! Written by Drew Goddard -- screenwriter of Ridley Scott's The Martian -- and adapted from a novel by Andy Weir -- the original writer of the novel The Martian -- Project Hail Mary is packed with big names behind the cameras, and Gosling and Sandra Huller aren't small names in front of the camera, either. In Project Hail Mary, a high school science teacher wakes up 11 light years from Earth, alone in a small spacecraft and no idea who he is or why he's there. Those questions are answered pretty quickly though: his name is Ryland Grace, and he's there to try and find a way to stop the sun from dying. Should be simple enough. Retrograde amnesia makes for a film where just about everything is spoilers, so keep that in mind for Pierre and Jeff's spoiler-filled discussion of Project Hail Mary! What did our hosts think of Gosling? What did they think of Huller? Is there anyone else in the movie, and if so, what did our hosts think of them? Tune in as we go through another classic movie... live!

This week on Classic Movies Live!, our hosts leave the Oscars behind to talk about what's sure to be a big player next year: Pixar's Hoppers! From Daniel Chong, director of Cartoon Network's We Bare Bears, Hoppers stars Piper Curda as Mabel Tanaka, a teenage environmental activist who transports her mind into the body of a mechanical beaver in order to save a glade near her home that's scheduled for demolition. Mabel quickly finds herself in over her head as she discovers the complexities of forest animal society, and the difficulty of communicating Mayor Jerry Generazzo's (Jon Hamm) intentions to remove the animals in favour of his pet project, a new beltway. After Elio and Inside Out 2, Hoppers feels like a bit of a deviation from Pixar's recent output, but also something of a return to form. Tune in as Pierre discuss what makes it fresh, what it says about the environment and eco-activism, and what this movie means for Pixar's future!

This week on Classic Movies Live! our hosts finish this year's Best Picture series! The Secret Agent is the second Brazilian movie in as many years to be nominated for Best Picture! A film by Kleber Mendonça Filho, The Secret Agent stars Wagner Moura as Armando, a professor on the wrong side of the Brazilian dictatorship in 1977. Arguably as much a film about a man on the run as it is about life in Recife under the dictatorship, The Secret Agent stands out as somewhat experimental among this year's Best Picture nominees. It's both a movie that trusts the audience to fill in the blanks when it comes to the plot and world, and also leaves a few too many blanks for the audience to be comfortable. The Secret Agent is a film that would be difficult to have a boring conversation about, so this episode is guaranteed to be one of the best in this year's Best Picture series! What did our hosts think? Did they like it? Does that matter? Tune in to find out... Live! And stick around to the very end for our hosts' thoughts on each of the Oscars categories. In some years, naming their picks has been a matter of seconds. This time... well, it's a lot harder!

We interrupt our regularly scheduled Best Picture lineup to bring you a little of bit of Canadiana. Not just any Canadiana, though, today's movie is a verified Future Classic: Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie! Spinning out of the beloved cult-classic 2017 Viceland show Nirvanna The Band The Show (itself based on a webseries of the same name from 2007), NTBTSTM follows Matt and Jay as they try to get a show at the Rivoli. What starts as a crazy plan to advertise a not-yet-existent concert by skydiving off the CN Tower quickly spirals out of control, resulting in Matt and Jay briefly travelling back in time and changing their futures! If that sounds hard to follow, just imagine Back to the Future, but set in Toronto as a mockumentary. Joining us today is Allen, a personal friend of the hosts and a huge fan of the show from when it originally aired. Between Pierre, Allen, and Jeff, we've got three distinct levels of familiarity with the show, rounding out a pretty good panel to talk about Matt and Jay's misadventures in 2008! Jeff refers multiple times to this interview conducted by Peter Kuplowsky in advance of the release of NTBTSTM: https://youtu.be/14gqhme2A0Q?si=lU_L85ThiaL-Vqbz

This week we're talking about a story that was made into a movie, only to be re-made later! I'm not sure what you'd call an episode like that, but here we call it Classic Movies Live! Bugonia is the latest collaboration between Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone, remaking the 2003 South Korean classic Save the Green Planet by Jang Joon-hwan. In both films, a powerful pharmaceutical CEO (Emma Stone/Baek Yoon-sik) is kidnapped by a down-on-his-luck man (Jesse Plemons/Shin Ha-kyun) who is convinced the CEO is an alien from the Andromeda galaxy, bent on destroying humanity. Both films are comic yet tense hostage thrillers, and cutting commentaries on society in their respective release eras. What's most interesting though, is that despite being quite similar on the page -- Bugonia even taking some lines from Save the Green Planet verbatim -- the two are, thematically, quite different! In this episode, following in the footsteps of previous episodes like Classic Movies Live – Season 4, Episode 15: Do Do-Over: The Hidden Fortress/Star Wars and CML Classics – Episode 33: Infernal Affairs, Pierre and Jeff break down both Bugonia and Save the Green Planet!

This week on Classic Movies Live!, we begin our yearly series of going through all the Best Picture Nominees at this year's Oscars. As with every year, we've actually already done most of them. Check out our episodes for F1, Frankenstein, Hamnet, Marty Supreme, One Battle After Another, Sentimental Value, and Sinners from throughout last year! And look forward to our remaining episodes on Bugonia and The Secret Agent coming in the next few weeks! But first, Train Dreams! Based on the 2011 novella by Denis Johnson, Train Dreams tells the story of Robert Granier, a railroad worker at the turn of the 20th century in the Idaho panhandle. Taking place over nearly 50 years, Train Dreams tracks the life of Granier as the world rapidly develops around him, while his own life progresses much more quickly than he initially expects. Pierre is away this week, but joining Jeff in his stead is friend of the show and first-time guest Victoria, who brings a background in media analysis and proximity to the Toronto film scene to talk about everyone's new favourite Joel Edgerton movie! You'll next see Victoria as part of this year's Academy of Death Racers awards! The Deathies will be hosted this year on March 14th on YouTube! What's your favourite memory associated with March 14th? Sound off in the comments below!

We're back with some new films, a new guest, and a new episode of Director Showdown! In this series, we pit 64 of the biggest directors to debut since 1998 against each other in a head-to-head tournament to determine the greatest director of the last 28 years! In the last episode, occasional Oscar rivals Bong Joon-ho and Adam McKay faced off with two films about classism and economic collapse. In the battle between Snowpiercer and The Big Short, McKay narrowly snatched victory, defeating his quadruple-Oscar winning opponent! Speaking of snatching things... this week we're talking about heists! Sort of! First on the ticket is a director prizing quality over quantity. Despite a filmography of only 4 films, Marielle Heller has made a name for herself with high-profile, buzzy titles that always get at least a little awards attention. Her film Nightbitch got Amy Adams a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress - Musical or Comedy, her film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood got Tom Hanks an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. The film we're talking about today, Can You Ever Forgive Me? netted Academy Award nominations for both of its main stars, Richard E Grant for Best Supporting Actor, and Melissa McCarthy for Best Lead Actress, as well as a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination for writers Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty. Can You Ever Forgive Me? is of course a biopic about Lee Israel, a biographer who in the 90s became infamous for forging literary letters in the style of authors such as Noël Coward, Fanny Brice, and Ernest Hemingway. McCarthy plays Israel in perhaps her greatest role to date, bringing just the right mix of misanthropy and charm to really centre this fusion of a biopic and a crime thriller. Heller's opponent is the ever-illustrious Guy Ritchie! Coming up alongside Matthew Vaughn in the early 2000s, Ritchie would make a name for himself with films like Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, and later the Sherlock Holmes series starring Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law. He's also the director who gave audiences their first taste of Jason Statham, who has himself become an institution in the 25+ years since his breakout role in Lock. Ritchie's followup to Lock would be the riotous ensemble heist film Snatch, about two boxing promoters who get in over their head at the same time as a group of small time criminals get their hands on a rare diamond. Those two plots, initially unrelated, intertwine in hilarious, almost Looney Tunes-esque ways as each group repeatedly fail their way upwards. Starring Statham alongside Brad Pitt, Stephen Graham, and Lennie James as everyone's favourite character Sol, Snatch has stood the test of time to become regarded as one of Ritchie's best films, as well as one of the most popular in each of the aforementioned actors' filmographies. (Editor's Note: Jeff claims repeatedly in this episode that Sol is "the driver." This is not true: in scenes featuring Sol and his gang driving, Sol sits next to the driver) Joining us today is a guest last heard on our 2025 Year In Review episode, and before that Kickin’ It With Kendrick, Episode 3: The Twilight Saga. That's right, Kylie from the Academy of Death Racers is back! Like all our guests, Kylie has a bit of a bias towards one of our competing films. Can you guess what it is before she tells you? And will Kylie's favourite come out on top? Tune in to find out in today's episode of Director Showdown! This episode was inspired by Rotten Tomatoes' Best Director Showdown, which was conducted among RT users over the summer of 2023. The results of that competition are summarized in this article. Special thanks this week to our good friend Cris, who made the cover art for this episode! Follow her on Instagram, Twitter, and Letterboxd to see more of her artwork, film opinions/reviews, or both!

It's our first episode of 2026! Kind of! More importantly, it's the season premiere of Classic Movies Live! and this week, our hosts are talking about the sister movie to last year's The Smashing Machine, directed by the Safdie that Venice forgot. In Marty Supreme, directed by Josh Safdie, Marty Mauser (Timothee Chalamet) needs cash now to get to Japan to prove he's the best table tennis player in the world. Chalamet gives his best performance yet as the ego-centric, driven Mauser, as he comes face to face with mob bosses, actresses, and the richest man in the world played by Kevin O'Leary, in his quest to be the best! We've already spoiled that Chalamet is great in this movie, but how is it overall? How is Tyler the Creator in his first role? How is Odessa A'zion, most recently seen in I Love LA, in what could be her breakout role? How is that guy from Dragon's Den that we all usually hate? I hope you're as excited as the writer of this description for the first episode of yet another year of Classic Movies... Live!

In the season finale of Classic Movies Live!, our hosts talk about 6 movies they haven't had the chance to talk about yet! With help from many special guests! Join us as Pierre and Jeff discuss their favourite films of the year, including plenty that are just too strange for us to have devoted a full episode to. Additionally, our hosts discuss the current state of the film industry, and what it's like to see a film in 2026! In this episode, be prepared for minor spoilers for Lilo & Stitch and Jurassic World: Rebirth. Major spoilers (potentially) for all of the following: Kokuho Predator: Badlands 100 Meters HIM Resurrection Materialists Of the above films, Jeff reviewed Kokuho and HIM for Contra Zoom Pod, and you can find those reviews here: Kokuho, HIM. Special thanks to all the guests featured in this episode, including: Dakota Arsenault from Contra Zoom Pod, last heard on CML in Episode 6 of our Director Showdown Series! Dakota especially liked our Frankenstein & The Bride and Apichatpong Weerasethakul vs. Ava DuVernay episodes! We especially liked CZP's K-Pop Demon Hunters and VIFF episodes! Pedro Lima, last heard on Season 6, Episode 19: TIFF Preview. Pedro writes reviews for several outlets, including Contra Zoom Pod, Shortstick, Movies We Texted About, and Keith Loves Movies. Pedro wrote a wonderful review of the film Dry Leaf over at Movies We Texted About. Kylie Corcoran, last heard on Kicking It with Kendrick Episode 3: The Twilight Saga. rach, last heard on Season 5, Episode 3: The Zone of Interest. And Jason Christian of Cold War Cinema. We especially enjoyed Jason's episodes on Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Pickup On South Street While he isn't featured on the episode, longtime friend of the show Ben also conducted an excellent interview with Celine Song, director of Materialists, which you can check out directly on YouTube.

Merry Christmas! To celebrate the holidays this year, we're taking things back to one of our favourite series on this show. In fact, long-time listeners may remember that our current cover art template was pioneered with an episode on the second movie in this series. The series I'm talking about, of course, is James Cameron's Avatar. And today, we're talking about the end of the current saga (but unlikely the last film in the series): Fire and Ash. Fire and Ash picks up right where The Way of Water left off. The Sullys have helped to save the Metkayina tribe, but lost their eldest son, Neteyam, in the process. Everyone's favourite tulkun, Payakan, has also defied his people's non-violent ways. And of course, Colonel Miles Quaritch barely managed to escape with his life. It's increasingly clear that proximity to the Sully family makes anyone a target, but as the Sullys attempt to escape back to the forest alongside wind traders, they're ambushed by the mysterious ash people, a tribe of Na'vi who believe Eywa has forsaken them. If you're not an Avatar-head, a better way to describe the film might be that Fire and Ash continues to explore the series' themes of belonging, reincarnation, and colonization, this time through characters that haven't gotten their time in the sun in previous movies. The film continues to amaze visually, pushing the boundaries of what movies can look like. The plot grounds itself in familiar territory in order to dive deeper into the philosophies and psyches of its characters. Like The Way of Water and Avatar before it, Fire and Ash truly is a sight to behold. ...and perhaps that gives away our broadest thoughts on it, but nevertheless our hosts have lots to say! Tune in to hear it all this week on Classic Movies Live!

This week on Classic Movies Live, our hosts talk about Shakespeare! Specifically, William Shakespeare, and even more specifically, the rendition of William Shakespeare played by Paul Mescal in Chloe Zhao's most recent film Hamnet. Hamnet is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Maggie O'Farrell, recounting the story of a tragedy in the life of The Bard that preceded the writing of his play Hamlet. Focusing primarily on his wife, Agnes (Jessie Buckley), and her life in Stratford-upon-Avon raising their children, Hamnet is a story about absent fathers, overprotective mothers, and the grief that sets in when everything you do just isn't enough to stop the worst from happening. Hamnet marks a major career milestone for Zhao. Coming off of Marvels The Eternals, it's significantly lower budget, but more traditionally fictional than her previous film Nomadland. It's her first time working with Mescal and Buckley. And certainly not least of all, it's her second time winning TIFF's People's Choice Award! Will it also be her second film to go big at the Oscars? Tune in as our hosts talk about one of their most hotly anticipated films of the year... Live!

This week on Classic Movies Live!, our hosts review the biggest movie of the year! Zootopia 2 picks up right where the first one left off. Judy Hopps is the first bunny cop in Zootopia, and reformed criminal Nick Wilde is the first fox cop, and Hopps' new partner. After busting Mayor Bellweather in the first movie, Hopps and Wilde are on an ambitious streak of overachieving, and starting to get sloppy as they try to leave their fellow police in the dust. After an animal trafficker gets away on Hopps and Wilde's watch, the duo is suspended... just in time to learn about a planned heist that threatens to turn the entire society of Zootopia on its head! Zootopia introduces Andy Samberg, Fortune Feimster, and Ke Huy Quan to the budding billion-dollar franchise, and brings back all the voices and talent that made the first one what it was. We didn't have the opportunity to talk about the first Zootopia on this show, so we never got around to exactly what that first one was... let's remedy that this week! ...Live!

It's time for the long-awaited episode 8 of Director Showdown! In this series, we pit 64 of the biggest directors to debut since 1998 against each other in an elimination bracket to determine who will walk away the greatest director of the last 27 years! In the last episode, we saw a clash of titans with Apichatpong Weerasethakul vs. Ava DuVernay, both with a film about how the sins of the past inform the issues of the present. Between Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives and Origin, the Palme d'Or winner ultimately came out on top, with Weerasethakul taking the record for first-round winner with the longest surname! This week, we try to imagine a world without capitalism... and end up just imagining the end of the world instead! Up first, we have another Palme d'Or winner. Hailing from South Korea, Bong Joon-ho really made a splash in the West when his 2019 film Parasite became the first Asian movie to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Of course, by the time it won, it was hardly a surprise: Parasite had already picked up the Palme d'Or and 3rd place at the TIFF People's Choice earlier that summer! But before Parasite, Bong had already established himself with films like Memories of Murder, The Host, and even a couple of Hollywood films like the Netflix-released Okja. Today, our hosts talk about Bong's biggest sci-fi hit: Snowpiercer. Starring Chris Evans, John Hurt, and Song Kang-ho, Snowpiercer is a climate-conscious thriller about a popular uprising on the world's last surviving train during a new ice age. Opposite Bong is Adam McKay! A longtime collaborator of Will Ferrell, McKay cut his teeth in comedy with films like Talladega Nights, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, and The Other Guys. In recent years, McKay pivoted slightly, moving away from outright comedies and into comedically-tinged political dramas. In recent years, McKay's even proven himself a regular at the Oscars with films like Vice and Don't Look Up -- which we covered in episode 18 of our series Losing It Over Leo. But the first of those dramedies was the Ryan Gosling/Christian Bale/Steve Carrell-starrer The Big Short. Centred around a group of Wall Street investors who recognize the subprime mortgage bubble before it became the subprime mortgage crisis, The Big Short tells the true story of how a handful of millionaires profited off the misfortune of a whole country. It also does a great job of answering the question on everybody's minds: what is a "subprime mortgage"? Joining us today is a repeat guest: Mark Morgan of Rambling Cinema! Mark was last heard on Match 4 of Director Showdown, where his passionate advocacy for Darren Aronofsky was ultimately unsuccessful in carrying the mother! director to victory. Will his favourite prevail in this episode? You'll have to tune in to find out! This episode was inspired by Rotten Tomatoes' Best Director Showdown, which was conducted among RT users over the summer of 2023. The results of that competition are summarized in this article. Special thanks this week to our good friend Cris, who made the cover art for this episode! Follow her on Instagram, Twitter, and Letterboxd to see more of her artwork, film opinions/reviews, or both!

This week on Classic Movies Live! our hosts talk about the winner of the Grand Prix at this year's Cannes Film Festival! Sentimental Value reunites director Joachim Trier with star Renate Reinsve to tell the story of Nora, a Norwegian theatre actress in the middle of a bold new production of Hamlet whose life is thrown into disarray by the reappearance of her film director father, Gustav (Stellan Skarsgard). Gustav wants Nora to star in his latest film, a deeply personal story that he claims he wrote specially for her. Nora, of course, wants no part in it, so Gustav instead casts American superstar Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning) to play the lead instead. Sentimental Value is an affecting story about relationships that may as well be impossible to fix, and people unable to communicate with each other. A story about things going unspoken that makes surprisingly effective narrative use of that unspokenness. Between an amazing script, great performances from all three leads, and Trier's unique deadpan sense of humour, it's a film that shouldn't be missed! So luckily, our hosts didn't miss it! Check out our thoughts on this eventual classic movie... live! ...and also in this episode, we talk about a new release reuniting the Four Horsemen of Magic! We saw that one, too!

It's part two of our series on Frankenstein this week on Classic Movies Live! In the previous episode, Pierre and Jeff talked about James Whale's 1930s films Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein. This week, our hosts are back to discuss an adaptation of Mary Shelley's classic that goes in a very different direction. Starring Oscar Isaac and Jacob Elordi, Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein sees the director returning to a gothic horror period piece a la Crimson Peak. Boasting a more "book-accurate" version of the story, Frankenstein features both Victor (Isaac) and the Creature (Elordi) recounting events from their points of view to a neutral sea captain (Lars Mikkelsen), who holds the fate of both in his hands. del Toro's interpretation is quite different from Whale's, focusing on entirely different themes and sections of the story. Is it better for it? Well, the answer to that question is a bit more complicated than it may initially appear.... For more Frankenstein discussion, you can check out Jeff's appearance on the Halloween episode of Contra Zoom Pod, where he joined Dakota Arsenault and Matthew Simpson to talk about Whale's vision, del Toro's, and also Young Frankenstein!

This week on Classic Movies Live, our hosts talk about one of the buzziest movies from this year's Sundance Film Festival, If I Had Legs I'd Kick You! The sophomore feature from director Mary Bronstein -- her first following 2008's Yeast -- If I Had Legs follows a psychotherapist named Linda as her life rapidly falls apart around her. Already stressed while dealing with her daughter's special needs and her sailor husband's absence, Linda's world is turned upside-down when a hole suddenly opens in the roof of her apartment. After moving into a local motel, Linda now has yet another thing to balance within her already overfull life. If I Had Legs stars Rose Byrne as Linda, with fantastic supporting performances from Conan O'Brien in a rare dramatic role, A$AP Rocky fresh off of Highest 2 Lowest, and rising star Ivy Wolk. Our hosts talk about what drew them to this movie, and how much or little Bronstein's manic energy pays off!

Happy Halloween and welcome to Classic BOO-vies Live! On this week's episode, our hosts talk about one of the most influential horror film duologies of all time: Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein. If you haven't seen either of these... well, you've probably seen more than you think! Pierre and Jeff talk about seeing Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's monster on screen for the first time, and finally recognizing where just about every sci-fi trope in film -- maybe ever? -- comes from! We talk about Boris Karloff and Colin Clive, James Whale and Ernest Thesiger. You might even hear us talk about Daniel Radcliffe. Why? To learn that, you'll have to tune in to hear us talk about this all-time classic movie... live!

This week on Classic Movies Live, our hosts talk about the directorial debut of Aziz Ansari! In Good Fortune, Ansari stars as Arj, a down-on-his-luck gig worker barely making ends meet in LA. When Arj meets Jeff (Seth Rogen), a millionaire venture capitalist with an easy life, things briefly start to look up as he becomes Jeff's permanent assistant... only to take a turn when Jeff lets him go after a little over a week. In his lowest moment, Arj is visited by the angel Gabriel (Keanu Reeves), who offers him the opportunity to live a few days in Jeff's shoes to see that the life of a rich man in LA isn't all it's cracked up to be. Thing is, life as a rich man in LA turns out to be all it's cracked up to be. Good Fortune is a type of comedy that's increasingly rare in the modern cinematic landscape. But is that a good thing, a breath of fresh air perhaps, or something we're happy to be rid of? Tune in to find out as Pierre and Jeff discuss this week's classic movie... live!

Can you smell what The Rock is cooking? On today's episode of Classic Movies Live!, we're once again reviewing a film featuring the incomparable Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson! Last discussed in our episode about S03E55 – Black Adam three years ago, Johnson is positioning himself for a comeback as a "serious actor" with a starring role in a film by one of the Safdie Brothers, chronicling three years in the life of UFC legend Mark Kerr. The Smashing Machine shows Kerr during a pivotal moment in his career, as he struggles with an opiate addiction, as well as losing his first fights during the earliest days of Japan's mixed martial arts Pride Fighting Championships. An acting showcase for Johnson and co-star Emily Blunt, The Smashing Machine centres Kerr and his rocky relationship with his then-girlfriend Dawn Staples, and the tension between his home life as a gentle giant, and his life in the ring as one of MMA's most brutal fighters. The Smashing Machine is a landmark film in the careers of Safdie and Johnson, but does it succeed in setting either up for new career highs? Tune in as Pierre and Jeff break down everything there is to talk about Mark Kerr, Dwayne Johnson, and Benny Safdie in yet another classic movie... live!

It's that time of year again! This week, our hosts are back with the annual episode devoted to the one, the only Leonardo DiCaprio! This time, we're losing it over Leo's first ever collaboration with Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another! Very loosely based on Thomas Pynchon's novel "Vineland," One Battle stars Leo as Bob Ferguson, an aging revolutionary thrust back into the crosshairs of an anti-immigration anti-domestic-terror general named Steven Lockjaw (Sean Penn). Fifteen years after the dissolution of Bob's revolutionary group, the French 75, Lockjaw finally tracks down him and his daughter, Willa, and decides to wipe out the rest of the group once and for all. One Battle might be PTA's most explicitly political movie -- and one of Leo's -- and couldn't be more of the moment. Despite that, it's far from a cynical political commentary, with just as much to say about what it means to age out of the counterculture. Or even if "aging out" is a viable way to exit the counterculture in the first place. There's a lot to say about Leo's latest, and our hosts are going full spoilers for episode two-zero of Losing It Over Leo!

TIFF turns 50, so now we're saying... TIFFTY! If you were wondering where we were over the last few weeks, well, we went to the fiftieth iteration of the Toronto International Film Festival! This year hosted over 250 movies, and Jeff tried to see as many as he could! As you'll hear, he got way further towards that goal than he probably should have... In this episode of Classic Movies Live!, our hosts talk about TIFF50. The good movies, the great movies, and one or two of the ugly ones. Tune in for the inside scoop on which movies you should be on the look out for in the latter half of 2025! Reviews for each movie are spoiler-free, but if you want to know what we're talking about, see the timestamps below! 0:00 - Intro and general festival thoughts 6:57 - Wake Up Dead Man 15:40 - Hamnet 25:02 - F*ck My Son! 29:58 - Midnight Madness feat. Festival Correspondent Robert Hill 36:14 - The Testament of Ann Lee 47:57 - Sacrifice 54:28 - Sacrifice and Rental Family feat. Dakota Arsenault of Contra Zoom Pod 1:04:12 - Frankenstein 1:13:41 - No Other Choice 1:23:45 - Kokuho feat. Festival Correspondent Robert Hill 1:33:12 - Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie 1:34:26 - No Drama feat. Brandon MacMurray of Shortstick For more TIFFTY content, check out Jeff's reviews over on ContraZoomPod.com, including in-depth reviews for two movies we discuss here -- Sacrifice and The Testament of Ann Lee -- and many that we don't -- like JUNK WORLD and Mare's Nest. Jeff was also recently on an episode of Contra Zoom Pod, where he talked about a different set of films from TIFF. Check that episode out here!

This week on Classic Movies Live... Darren Aronofsky! Our hosts re-encounter the renowned director with his latest film, Caught Stealing! Featuring an all-star cast including Austin Butler, Zoe Kravitz, Matt Smith, Regina King, and Liev Schreiber, Caught Stealing represents a bit of a departure for Aronofsky. Unlike the deeply metaphorical mother! (which our hosts tackled in an episode of Director Showdown), Caught Stealing is pretty straightforward... or at least, takes place straightforwardly in the modern world. In 1998, former baseball virtuoso Hank (Butler) is caught in the middle of a gang war involving high grade ecstasy that puts him at odds with the Russian Mafia, corrupt cops, Puerto Rican gangsters, and a pair of terrifying Orthodox Jewish assassins. And all of it starts when his friend Russ (Smith) asks him to catsit for the weekend... This week's episode is shorter than usual, but no less impactful as we talk about all aspects of Caught Stealing! How is Austin Butler? How does it compare to other Aronofsky films? What does it all mean? The answers to all these questions and more today on Classic Movies Live!

Founded in 1975, the Toronto International Film Festival celebrates 50 years this September! The 50th festival includes big titles like The Smashing Machine, Blue Heron, Mile End Kicks, and If I Had Legs I'd Kick You. And that's not all! TIFF50 boasts over 250 films showing on King Street over 11 days! Are you going to TIFF this year? Well, Jeff is! And joining the show today are two other credentialed members of the TIFF50 Press Corps, Pedro Lima and Kyle from Awards Addicts! On today's episode of Classic Movies Live, we talk about movies we're excited to see at TIFF, including many that probably have gone under your radar. We talk about the festival experience, the names to watch, and all sorts of things to look forward to over the next few weeks! In particular, this episode contains segments on the films Dry Leaf (dir. Alexandre Koberidze), Mare's Nest (dir. Ben Rivers), Hen (dir. György Palfi), No Other Choice (dir. Park Chan-wook), Frankenstein (dir. Guillermo del Toro), and Nuestra Tierra (dir. Lucrecia Martel). You can read Pedro's review of Dry Leaf for MoviesWeTextedAbout here. You can find more of Pedro over on Twitter, as well as ShortStick, MoviesWeTextedAbout, Contra Zoom Pod, and Keith Loves Movies. You can get more Kyle over on his YouTube channel The Awards Addicts and From the Fourth Row!

Director Showdown turns 7 episodes old today! In this series, we pit 64 of the biggest directors to debut since 1998 against each other in an elimination bracket to determine who will walk away the greatest director of the last 26 years! In the last episode, we looked into Joanna Hogg and Jason Reitman's approach to autobiographical -- or semi-autobiographical -- filmmaking. How each artist explored the impact of people around them on their view of themselves, or the people closest to them. Pitting The Souvenir against Saturday Night, Hogg ultimately came out on top and advanced to the next round! This week, we move into finding the first competitor for the fourth matchup of that next round.... We start with the heavy hitter, the first director in this series to win a Palme d'Or for his work, Apichatpong Weerasethakul! Born in 1970, Weerasethakul (or sometimes "Joe") grew up in a traditional Buddhist family, and got his bachelor's degree in architecture in 1994. Before even finishing school, he'd already made his first short film, and would go on to debut his first feature, Mysterious Object at Noon, in 2000. In 2010, Weerasethakul finished a multi-platform art project, "Primitive", which culminated in the film Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives winning the Palme d'Or at Cannes Film Festival. Uncle Boonmee would go on to be selected as the Thai submission for the International Feature Oscar at the 83rd Academy Awards, but would not be selected. But despite not being recognized by the Academy, Uncle Boonmee was and continues to be recognized by many critics as one of the best films ever made. Facing off against Joe is Ava DuVernay. DuVernay has proven herself a force as both a narrative and documentary filmmaker. Her 2017 documentary 13th was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary feature, making DuVernay the first black woman nominated for that award. Her 2014 film Selma was nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Song at the 87th Academy Awards. She's additionally directed A Wrinkle In Time for Disney, produced 2021's The White Tiger, and written, directed, and created shows for HBO, Netflix, CBS, and others. DuVernay's 2023 film Origin combines all those skills, DuVernay adapting the book "Caste: The Origins of our Discontents" by Isabel Wilkerson into a hybrid docudrama about Wilkerson's life and the idea of caste. In this episode, we're taking a look at how the most distant past affects the present. How trauma seeps through generations, and ultimately forms the very society we live in today. Not all of us can recall our past lives, but there must nevertheless be an origin of our discontents. Joining us on today's episode is Zachary Lee! Zachary is a freelance film critic who has written for RogerEbert.com, MovieWeb, Letterboxd, and many more sites. Recently, he wrote a few pieces about the film The Monkey, at least one of which we briefly talk about in this episode. You can find more of Zachary over on Twitter and Letterboxd! Finally, check out the RogerEbert.com review of Origin that Zachary mentions in this episode, written by Robert Daniels This episode was inspired by Rotten Tomatoes' Best Director Showdown, which was conducted among RT users over the summer of 2023. The results of that competition are summarized in this article. Special thanks this week to our good friend Cris, who made the cover art for this episode! Follow her on Instagram, Twitter, and Letterboxd to see more of her artwork, film opinions/reviews, or both!

Nearly three years ago, our hosts discussed the solo debut feature of Zach Cregger, formerly of The Whitest Kids U Know. Breaking slightly from his comedy roots, Barbarian was one of the best -- but also funniest -- horror films of 2022. Cregger's followup, the cryptically-named Weapons, might just be scarier... and funnier. On this episode of Classic Movies Live, Pierre and Jeff discuss Weapons. Cregger's Magnolia-inspired, deeply personal meditation on... well, a lot of things, many of them pretty disturbing! This episode contains full spoilers for Weapons, but we recommend you go in blind if you have the chance! Spoilers for the episode: both our hosts are about to recommend that you see this movie!

So far in 2025, our hosts have had a bit of a rough year. Between several superhero movies that don't quite meet expectations, nothing has truly stood out and stolen the hearts of Pierre and Jeff. Until this weekend, that is. This week on Classic Movies Live! our hosts take on not one, but two movies! First up, we're talking about Dave Franco and Alison Brie's relationship, specifically in the context of Michael Shanks' directorial debut horror film Together. Next up, the long-awaited reboot of The Naked Gun from Akiva Schaffer starring Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson! Both parts of this episode will have spoilers, so here's a light one: Go see these movies if you haven't! If you reach the spoiler warning in the discussion of Together, you can skip to 35:11 to hear our hosts k about The Naked Gun.

The final Classic Movie of July 2025 is Fantastic Four: First Steps! Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach star in a 60's-inspired, alternate universe take on Marvel's First Family. The fourth adaptation of the Fantastic Four, First Steps sees Reed Richards welcome a new baby while he and his family fend off Galactus, the Eater of Worlds. This is the final MCU film of the year, and the one that will lead into next year's Doomsday. In a year full of superheroes, how do Mr. Fantastic, The Invisible Woman, The Human Torch, and The Thing fare? Is Ralph Ineson's Galactus better than Rise of the Silver Surfer's CGI cloud? And maybe just as importantly: will Pierre ever like a superhero movie again? Could First Steps be the cure? Tune in for answers to all these questions and more.... live!

This week, Jeff takes the show on the road! Jeff and festival correspondent Robert are in Montreal for the first week of the 29th Fantasia Film Festival! Featuring a range of films from all over the world, Fantasia has more than established itself as the go to festival in Canada for horror, anime, and lower-budget indies you might not see anywhere else! It's also a major festival early into film festival season, and as such often hosts North American premieres of major summer blockbusters and Cannes titles. This year is no different, with the festival's opening night featuring the incredible one-two punch of Eddington and The Smurfs! Robert and Jeff went to both and sat down afterwards to talk about the good, the bad, and the smurf of it all! In today's show, you'll also hear about the most-anticipated festival titles from Pedro Lima (of Contra Zoom Pod, Movies We Texted About, and Keith Loves Movies), Dakota Arsenault (of Contra Zoom Pod), and rach (of Contra Zoom Pod). But that's not all! Bryan Loomis from the What a Picture Podcast calls in to talk about a great movie he's seen at Fantasia, as does Calvin Kemph from The Twin Geeks! The gang's aall here on this week's episode to talk about Classic Movies... Live!

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a classic movie... live! This week on Classic Movies Live, our hosts discuss the long-awaited follow-up to Black Adam: James Gunn's Superman! Continuing the story of the DC Universe that began with Blue Beetle, Peacemaker, and Creature Commandos, Superman takes place 3 minutes after the big blue boy scout loses his very first fight. Superman soon finds himself thrust into an international conflict which may or may not be entirely smokescreen for the nefarious plans of jealous tech-billionnaire/genius Lex Luthor. Gunn hits the ground running with his take on the Man of Steel... but how does it compare to something like Man of Steel? Tune in as our hosts break down yet another classic movie... live!

It's summer here at Classic Movies Live!, and that means it's time for big tentpole movies! In this episode, we're talking about two of the year's biggest action movies, both starring Shea Whigham! To start off, our hosts discuss Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning. If this is to be the last Mission Impossible movie, how is the series going out? Is McQ and Tom Cruise's latest collaboration and the culmination of their biggest project together worth seeing? There's a good chance you've already made your decision, but we're here to help you if you haven't! In the second half of this episode, we're talking about the latest from Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski. Trading Tom Cruise for Brad Pitt and airplanes for fast cars: it's F1 The Movie. Pitt stars as a washed up Formula 1 racer brought in for one last series. Here on CML, we love car movies... did we also love this one? Tune in to find out!